Kassaundra 0:00
I love them or hate them. The truth is, reels have an amazing power to help you grow your community. So let's chat about it.
So teacher author's go ahead and reheat that cup of coffee, because I'm your host, Cassandra Foster, and we're about to get schooled in socials.
Welcome back to school in socials. In my work as a social media manager, I have found there are usually two groups of people when it comes to Instagram reels. They either love them and don't mind making them or they cannot stand creating them. Honestly, I'm the former and love creating content in the form of reels. It's just how my mind works. But I do understand the feelings of that second group of non lovers, reels can be really time consuming and a lot of work. Now, whether your team reels or not, when it comes down to it reels can be a great way to grow your community. And here are my five reasons why you might want to start using them. Reason number one, sheer popularity of the content type. So according to demand sage, who just updated stats for 2023 for Instagram, 2.3 5 billion people interact with reels every month in the United States is the second biggest Instagram reels market only to India, with 159.7 5 million people using reels regularly. When it comes down to it, people are consuming video content, and they're doing so at a very high rate. So if you're wanting to grow your community, creating content that is being consumed at a higher rate, and may be more popular than other content types, means more potential for people who are not yet part of your community to hear your messages. Reason number two reels tend to have a larger overall reach, and sometimes even have a larger reach to your non followers. So what this means is that typically, reels get pushed out more to people than other types of posts. Although at the time of this recording, Instagram is starting to push out carousels a little more, too. But reels tend to get pushed out more at this point in time. And they also tend to be seen more by non followers than other types of content. So to illustrate this point, you know, me I love some data, I took some data for my own Instagram account, which is on the smaller side, and then some data from another account that is a larger, and I compare the stats on the last 10 Regular feed posts, which consisted of static posts and carousels to the last 10 reals posts. So for my account, the feed post averages on average across the last 10 of my feed posts. 75 followers saw that content 30 non followers saw that content, and a total of 94 people actually saw my posts when it comes to my reels averages. An average of 100 followers saw those reels, an average of 99 non followers saw those reels, and a total of 200 people saw those reels. So the amount of people who aren't following me compared to those who are saw my reels were almost the same, right, 99 and 100. And the total number of people who saw my reels on average was over 100 people greater when it came to my reels than my feed posts. Now for the larger account for the feed posts averages over 10 Feed posts, an average of 1420 followers saw that content, an average of 667 non followers saw that content and a total of an average of 2087. People saw that content. When it comes to reels for that account. An average of 2164 followers saw that content, an average of 780 non followers saw that content, and a total of 2944. People saw that content altogether. So there were about 100 More non followers on average that saw this accounts reels, and almost 900 more eyes on those reels than feed posts. When it comes down to it. more eyes on your content, specifically more eyes of non followers is a great start for growing your community. The more people that don't already know about you get to learn about you and get to hear your message, the more potential for them to actually li become a community member. Reason number three, ease of consumption and engagement. When it comes down to it, video is just easy to consume when scrolling social media. It has a great way of capturing people's attention and can be less effort than interacting with some other content types. The best part for you the ease of your potential community members journey to joining your community. Did you know that people can follow you right from the reels page, there is a Follow button right next to your handle on your reel when people are scrolling the reels page, this means that if they like what they see, all they have to do is hit that follow button to join your community versus feed posts where they have to click on your handle on the post, get redirected to your page and then select follow. And we know from Episode 15, where we talked about getting your community members to your Lincoln bio, we want to keep that journey as easy and streamlined as possible for them. The same rule applies here, we want to make it as easy as possible to join our community. And reels allows for that. There is so much pressure this time of the year to buy more stuff from Black Friday sales to Christmas ads. But I don't want you to buy more stuff, I want you to get the right things you need to uplevel your business in this season. So that's why I've opened up my mini Social Media Console scheduled for the next three months. So that we can make resources that are going to get stuck in your downloads and courses that are going to go immediately to your desktop graveyard, a thing of the past. Instead, you're going to get my brain and your business for our focus 30 minutes, so that you can make sure you have a solid plan moving forward. And you know, your social media will help you reach your business goals. This is not a one size fits all solution. Instead, you're going to get targeted advice that is focused on you and your business. And for Black Friday. And until these spots sell out, you're going to be able to get it for $47, which is the lowest price point these mini consults have ever been. We're talking transformational advice that will make your social media work harder for you. For less than a night out. This isn't stuff. It's the thing, you need to get clarity and move forward with your social media marketing, you can grab your discounted spot right now in the show notes. But hurry, because once these spots that I've opened up for the next few months are gone, this price point will be gone too. I can't wait to make 2020 for the year that your social media marketing helps you reach all of your big business goals.
Reason number four, ability to promote brand awareness. And if you're a little lost on what brand awareness is and why it's important to your marketing, Episode 11 has all those details for you. So when you want to grow your community, you need people to learn about you and your business. If they don't know about you, they can't join your community, right. When you create reels, you have a great opportunity to really promote your brand awareness. You can do this by simply being in your reels and showing your face. This allows non followers to get to recognize you and know you. You can also use certain styles of video text messaging excetera that can be recognizable for your brand. And if your business is recognizable, and more people are seeing it, that is the perfect storm for community growth. And finally, reason number five Freels allow you to easily create relatable and shareable content. Again, when you are in that brand awareness stage, you really want potential community members to know that you understand them, you understand their pain points, and creating a short video about something relatable to your target audience is a great way to get their attention. With that simple video, you can start to make connections with other people, which is an important part of growing your community. Plus, if you haven't noticed, people are sharing reels all the time. I know I have when I come across a reel that resonates with me. Maybe it was funny and relatable to who I am. Maybe it pulled up my emotions. Maybe I completely agreed with the Creator. I almost always share it to my stories so that my audience gets to see it too. And taking advantage of other people's audiences is gold for community growth. So if you are creating reels that truly relate to your target audience, and your message resonates, people are probably going to share it and guess what you You can even ask them to as a call to action. In fact, you should ask them to, which means you can get even more eyes on your content, even more ears, listening to your messages, and hopefully even more people coming to join your community. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying reels are the end all be all when it comes to content. Any good strategy should include multiple kinds of content. But if you are really looking to grow your community, creating reels is a great place to start and a great investment of your time. So maybe by now, I've convinced at least a few of you to go out and create reels for your account. But I'm always looking for ways to make social media easier for you. So I wanted to make sure to share my reels idea freebie with all of you. You can grab your copy right in the show notes and start off your reels journey with 25 education related reels ideas. All right, cool coffee friends. Thanks so much for listening. If you're loving getting schooled in socials, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Also, I would love it if you left a review so that other teacher authors like you can start getting schooled in socials too. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.